Dangers of new phenomenon game “Pokemon Go”

July 18, 2016

Pokémon Go has become an international phenomenon starting in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game with the added benefit of improving the mental and physical health of its players by requiring players to get up and move to popular destinations in their area. Each player creates his or her own avatar. After the avatar is created, it is displayed at the player’s current location along with a map of the player’s surroundings. The user then begins to travel the real world with their avatar moving along the game’s map.

Pokémon Go has attracted some controversy due to reports of causing accidents and being a public nuisance. Many highways and police departments have been posting reminders like “Don’t Pokémon and drive,” as well as alerting the public about the dangers of Pokémon Go. Since the game has been released there have been many accidents reported of Pokémon Go players running across major highways, walking into streets and crashing their vehicles to catch a Pokémon.

On July 12, 2016, six days after it was released, the game became the most active mobile game in the United States with 21 million users. Encinitas Fire Department confirmed two men fell off a cliff in San Diego’s North County while playing “Pokémon Go.” With this many users participating in the game, it is important that users are aware of their surroundings and only catch Pokémon in appropriate areas to avoid accidents.